'When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras' - the old adage is well-known to GPs but what should you do when faced with a zebra, not a horse? Consultant cardiologist Professor Robert Tulloh and GP Dr Louise Tulloh kick off our new series with their advice on how to catch Kawasaki disease in general practice.

Sir Keith had also recommended revalidation would be renamed 'relicensing', as this would be more meaningful to patients; tracking impact of revalidation; making sure managers were not using revalidation to push local performance targets; and looking closer at responsible officer conflicts of interest.

In response, the GMC said it will consult doctors and patients to 'identify how to make the patient feedback process easier and more valuable', by March next year.

By the same deadline, the GMC said it will:

provide doctors and responsible officers with 'clearer guidance' on what is required of them for revalidation;

offer 'more specific advice' on how doctors should gather colleague feedback, including how to select the colleagues; and

improve the revalidation process for doctors working across different settings, including the NHS and private practice, so that it 'covers a doctor's whole scope of practice'.

It also said it would come up with a simpler explanation of revalidation to patients and develop a 'proportionate way' to monitor revalidation to ensure it does what it is supposed to do.

The medical royal colleges will also be updating their revalidation guidance to clarify the GMC's requirements as well as their own recommendations, the GMC added.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health will review rules for who should revalidate locums and other doctors who do not have an obivous responsbile officer.

GMC chair Charley Massey said: 'We’ve held discussions with representatives of doctors, patients and other bodies who deliver revalidation across the UK, focusing on the key actions required to make improvements, without adding additional cost or burden. This plan, and the commitments in it, is the result of that initial joint work.

‘But it’s just the beginning, and it’s vital now that we maintain the momentum. We need the continued commitment from a wide range of organisations to make revalidation a better experience for doctors, especially at a time when they are under ever-increasing pressure.

‘Revalidation is integral to assuring patients that we regularly confirm that a doctor remains fit to practise. Our focus now is continuing to work with other organisations, getting their feedback and input, as we act on commitments set out in this plan.’

BMA chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said that the BMA 'supports the principle of revalidation', adding: 'We see this action plan as an opportunity to reduce the burden that revalidation imposes on doctors.

'In particular, we want to see implementation of the recommendation from Sir Keith Pearson’s review that local organisations should not use revalidation as a lever to achieve objectives beyond the GMC’s revalidation requirements.

’We also agree with Sir Keith that doctors should be able to challenge decisions they feel are unfair.

Dr Nagpaul added that the BMA will 'continue to press the GMC and other bodies about the actions needed to relieve the unnecessary burden that revalidation can sometimes place on doctors'.

Today I saw a patient with subfertility. Despite my best efforts she could not comprehend that the CCG contract does not allow me to refer patients for further fertility management if they have existing children. I was accused of being obstructive. She went straight to reception and filled out a Friends & Family form all in the negative.
We are constantly being judged on things outside of our control.

If real-time feedback happens on this crazy basis, it is bye-bye from me to working in the UK. I will not have my livelihood put under such ridiculous 'customer-service' scrutiny in a system failing a the seams, and for which we are often the fall-guys for to take the flak for system failure.

There is an open website from the GMC for you to put your views about this. Please put your views on https://gmcuk.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/taking-revalidation-forward-where-are-we-now/?dm_i=OUY,51QJ1,3F770O,JAFBG,1
The GMC are even answering some of them although my comment doesn't seem to be visible and it refuses to let me send it again saying it is a duplication.

So they are going to start specifying which colleagues can give feedback ?basically making it even more difficult to get the bloody feedback . Half the colleagues dont reply to the silly emailed forms and have to be repeatedly chased . The whole thing is a farce and GMC will just keep making it more onerous .

In truth the 5 yearly meaningless and irrelevant revalidation is less of a ball ache than the annual meaningless and irrelevant appraisal. A couple of pointless questionnaires and a useless audit is a picnic compared to the sheer hell of inventing PDP objectives that will take the least effort, writing out drivel about meetings attended that no-one will ever read, and the hours frittered away uploading certificates on to a website that crashes the night before the appraisal. It's all a colossal waste of time and energy done to tick a box so we can be left in peace until we have to repeat the whole monstrosity a year later.